Wednesday, September 26, 2007

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (26.September,2007) – The third technical round of negotiations between the representatives of Bosnia's eight biggest political parties on police reform, proposed by the International Community's High Representative in Bosnia,Miroslav Lajcak, was held in Sarajevo.No important results have been achieved. The talks are to continue in Banja Luka on Wednesday.

Agreement on police reform is a precondition for signing of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement between Bosnia and the EU (SAA).It should be reached by the end of September because the European Commission is preparing a report on Bosnia's progress for October.

SDP Party representative Damir Hadzic sees the only consistency in slowness in the process of reaching a solution. He stated that the only concrete issue agreed upon was international cooperation of the unified police structure, and a new text will be designed for everything else.

”If this practice continues, I am afraid that the deadline, the end of September, will mean nothing. The most important issues will not be agreed upon”, Hadzic said.

He expects that the police reform will be either affirmed or stopped. If that happens, it will be clear that no agreement is possible between the ruling structures.

Slobodan Nagradic, representative of the Party of Democratic Progress (PDP), stated that the issues discussed were of a more serious nature.

”Since we have not made an agreement on any of the important issues the OHR representatives thought of as easy, it seems normal to me that we cannot agree upon the ‘difficult’ issues”. Nagradic said.

He added that all the issues have been touched upon, including the police boards’ activities, police direction… Each party was given a “home assignment” to formulate the attitudes until the beginning of the next meting.

Semsudin Mehmedovic, SDA Party representative stated that he is not satisfied with the tempo of the talks. He expected that the entire text of the protocol would have been covered.

”However, we managed to cover a little more than a half. We have left the most difficult of issues, like financing and organization of police districts for the end. I think we will argue most about these issues. That is not in our mandate. Those are difficult political issues and only political parties’ leaders are to decide upon them”, Mehmedovic said.

He emphasized that he had no objections to a single item of the Protocol. He added to have accepted the complete text of the document, but the political parties of the Serbians living in Bosnia were the ones objecting certain issues.

”I am afraid that time is what certain people are trying to buy. They want us to run out of time. They want us to enter October without making any progress”, Mehmedovic said.

”As far as HDZ Party is concerned, this Protocol is a good base for an agreement”, Mijo Kresic said.

He added that certain differences in opinions were seen and that certain items in the document “limit the action” of the persons responsible in the police reform process.